Gurney Drive, and Ming Garden @ Georgetown, Penang

Had a working trip in Penang. A colleague arranged to take us a few of us out for dinner and we ended up at the touristy Gurney Drive, it has been drizzling, so the crowd was thin. We ordered a variety of food, one of the dishes was from the Ikan Bakar stall, which seemed to be popular as there were a large number of people standing around the stall waiting for their orders to be fulfilled. We ordered string ray and another plate of sotong. although the sauce was hot, the meat of the sting ray was rather bland , the sotong fared a bit better. The char koay teow was ok, i guess, but the rest of the food were just ‘normal’- and ‘normal’ is not something you want to have to eat when you are in a food haven like Penang. I guess lesson learnt – eat where the locals eat – not where the tourist gather – haha..i might be generalizing but in my opinion, food at Gurney Drive is over rated.

The following night, had dinner at Ming Garden which is located at Times Square .The tagline of the restaurant : ‘ the largest Chinese restaurant in Penang’, the space didn’t looked that big to be the largest restaurant in Penang , anyway- how would I know ? The entrance was impressive though

I loved these decorations – so pretty one..

We had a private room, the setting was nice..

As we were dining with customers, it wasn’t that polite to keep people waiting while I take pictures , as well as having to explain the picture taking…so, I refrained…but the little piggy caught my fancy- not exactly a model in the making but not something that a little nip and tuck couldn’t improve. Oh, sorry, i am still experiencing an aftershock of viewing the before and after photos from a Korean plastic surgery hospital, Everyone can look like a K-Pop Star ! sorry..back to food , little piggy didn’t have too much of fat under the skin, thus making the pleasure of enjoying this a little more guilt free..

One other dish which I had managed to take a photo of was the steamed fish. This was not over steamed and the meat was sweet and juicy, the accompanying fu chuk ( soya sticks) were nice too..

Overall, we were happy with the the food at Ming Garden

Oh, when I visit their website – the ‘largest’ was further quantify as : ‘the 20,000 sq ft restaurant is said to be the largest Chinese restaurant within a shopping complex in the Northen Region.’